Mr. John Payne Collier, in his “A Book of Roxburghe Ballads,” London, 1847, reproduces a capital ditty; “ryhte merrie and very excellent in its way,” relating to the popular pursuits and the customs of London and the Londoners in the early part of the seventeenth century. It is printed verbatim from a broadside, signed W. Turner, and called:—
| “The Common Cries of London Town, Some go up street and some go down. |
With Turner’s Dish of Stuff, or a Gallymaufery
To the tune of Wotton Towns End.[6] Printed for F. C[oles,] T. V[ere,] and W. G[ilbertson.] 1662.”
The only known copy is dated 1662, but contains internal evidence, in the following stanza (which occurs in the opening of The Second Part,) that it was written in the reign of James I.
| “That’s the fat foole of the Curtin: And the lean fool of the Bull: Since Shancke did leave to sing his rimes, He is counted but a gull. “The players on the Bankside, The round Globe and the Swan, Will teach you idle tricks of love, But the Bull will play the man.” |
Shancke.—John Shancke the comic actor here mentioned was celebrated for singing rhymes, and what were technically “jigs” on the stage. In this respect, as a low comedian he had been the legitimate successor of Tarlton, Kempe, Phillips, and Singer. He was on the stage from 1603 to 1635, when he died. Then, John Taylor the Water Poet, no mean authority, informs us that the Swan Theatre, on the Bankside, in the Liberty of Paris Gardens, had been abandoned by the players in 1613. The Curtain Theatre in Holywell street—or Halliwell street, as it was usually spelt at that time—Shoreditch Fields[7] had also fallen into disuse before the reign of Charles I. The Globe on the Bankside, and the [Red] Bull Theatre at the upper end of St. John’s street, Clerkenwell were employed until after the restoration. The allusion to the Waterman carrying “bonny lasses over to the plays,” is also a curious note of time. With these matters before us, we may safely conclude that “Turner’s Dish of Stuff” is but a reprint of an earlier production. As we find it, so we lay it before our readers: thus:—
“The Common Cries of London Town:
Some go up street, some go down.
With Turner’s Dish of Stuff, or a Gallymaufery.